


Lighthouse In Our Own Tears

by PuzlDragon



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! - All Media Types, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: Angst, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Is Gay, Everyone Needs A Hug, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27646097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuzlDragon/pseuds/PuzlDragon
Summary: After everything, Yusei has to get away. Get away from it all. From everything. But he finds someone. Someone familiarAnd perhaps that's a good thing.
Relationships: Kalin Kessler/Yusei Fudo
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16
Collections: Yu-Gi-Oh! It's Time to G-G-G-Gift! [Mini-Exchange]





	Lighthouse In Our Own Tears

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LightningClawedSky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightningClawedSky/gifts).



Yusei didn't know where he was going. Not at first. He just needed to go. Somewhere. Anywhere. Wind whipping his face in an icy blast. Thrashing his jacket. The air turned cool. Then scorching hot. He had nothing with him. Just his deck, runner and the clothing on his back.

He packed more when he escaped from the Satellite.

What was there left? What held true meaning anymore? When you have proof of a future of devastation, possibly incurable? When you lose a friend you should have protected? When you see someone with your face - a copied duplicate - raze the world? A Machiavellian double of your own face. A face never meant to be taken. Was it true the machine copied his personality? 100%? Was that what Yusei could become, Yusei if he was pushed to the limit? And Bruno. Poor Bruno. A goofy smile meant to be defended. Thousands of robed, brain-washed figures screaming as they were sucked into darkness.

His engine roared louder. It filled his ears as he revved the engine. The last golden hues of sunset pried under his closed eyelids viciously.

Eventually, his foolishness catches up to him. Like always. The jerk of his runner striking an object. The feeling of flying. Gravity's pull. Rays of sun fire. Impact after weightlessness.

The pain of fragile human flesh against the ground.

Flickering lights dance in his eyes. Dust stirs into the blistering air. It chokes him. He coughs as everything goes dark.

******

Yusei doesn't know where he is. His nerves spike. Every hair of his stands at attention.. (The few that don't normally.) His heart thrums.

But he keeps his eyes closed.

His breathing slow. He's done this before. He's done ... a lot of things before. An image of an older version of his face pops into his head. One that hides behind white armor. A vivid mirage. He can't help it. He grits his teeth.

"I know you're awake." It's followed by a huffed laugh. Dry, mirthless like the desert Yusei just lost himself in. A familiar laugh.Yusdi recalls it. Recalls it bubbling like the depths of the sea. A familiar laugh. But friend or foe? Yusei can't tell anymore. Can't tell who from whom. Up from down. The world is too confusing to make sense anymore. There is only one way to find out.

He opens his eyes.

Between dull light stabbing his pupils, he sees a rough brown trenchcoat. A gossamer veil of silver hair.

"Kalin!"

"You sound so surprised to see me. Even though you drove out to satisfaction town. Heh. Though you seemed to be trying to bring back its old name." Kalin laughs again. A dry, tired old laugh. Like his voice, the roar of the ocean has evaporated in the desert heat. Kalin never sounded like that. Not before. Not before everything. But then everything changed...well, everything. What is a damned world, and a few apocalypses to people? Turns out, an awful lot. Nothing stays the same. Bruno's carefree laugh rings in Yusei's ears. No, nothing stays the same.

"You're lucky I found you. No extra clothes. No food. Not even water." Kalin gets up from the wood chair he sits on. The dark wood creaks a protesting groan like a grumpy old man. Kalin's steps are sturdy. Deep from his thick soles. He stands over Yusei's borrowed bed. Coat, and hair hang over Yusei. It flows, and quivers gently like water from a cliff. A continuation of what came before.

"You do realize how bad off you would be if I didn't find you? What were you thinking, Yusei?"

"I wasn't really thinking of anything." It's easy to say. Easy to say things to Kalin, even after everything. Changed maybe. But there's that history that still thrums between them. But it isn't entirely true. Yusei grits his teeth. His ears pop. Yusei was thinking. He just wish he wasn't. He stares down at his hands. He flexes them slowly. The hands that couldn't save Bruno. Couldn't save others. He watches as his hands curl into the blanket. It is bumpy, textured. It gives a good grip as he digs his fingers into it. He watches his knuckles turn white.

"Yusei." Kalin looks into his eyes. He waits, patiently. They sit in the silence. As they used to. But it is no longer like they used to. The weight of the world has sat on their shoulders. Collapsed, and crumbled upon it. They breath in its ashes in silence, as they suffocate in them.

They both look away, to stare at the wall. As the minutes pass, Kalin sits down on the edge of the bed. The blanket rumples unhappily. His back faces away from Yusei.

"I'm sorry," Yusei barely hears the whisper. It is soft as the rustle of wind stirring dust.

"I am, too."

They pass the evening like that, until the last reaches of sunset die outside the window. Kalin softly lays out clothes for Yusei, as Yusei heads to a shower. The water is scalding hot, like everything in the desert. It turns Yusei's skin cherry red. He cannot feel it. They head to bed together. They always used to share a bed in the Satellite. As team satisfaction. As youngsters. Yusei, sharing a bed with four other kids. No one in Satellite could afford another bed, another room.

It has felt lonely, sleeping on his own. But now that he shares a bed once again, he does not know how to react. The warmth of another person. Soft breaths puffed in a shared space. It is an uncanny ghost. One that Yusei is unsettled to see again. For Yusei is a stranger in his own skin, much less to the familiar. They both settle eventually, an aching reunion for both of them.

The dreams that Yusei has are closer to memories. Reality closer to reflections. Nightmares closer to regrets. Screams of the damned haunting Yusei. He comes awake all at once, his racing heart pounding his mind to a dusty room. The bed next to him is only tepid. Warmth slowly jailbreaking from confinement. Yusei sits up, surveying the room around him. Productivity. A task. A focus. Something, anything, instead of dwelling.

He gets up, walking with barefeet. They are magnets for dust. Yusei relishes it. He was used to dust amongst the ruins of a once-abandoned subway. The grains grate against his feet. Demanding his awareness. Yusei is happy to provide. Eventually, his search ends upon muffled sobs. They originate from a closed door. Light beams out from the door cracks. A lighthouse for Yusei's troubled thoughts.

Yusei grasps the loose doorknob, turning carefully. He still winces as the light stabs his sight. A hysterical laugh follows.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you." Tired. So tired. But not from no sleep.

"You didn't." There is a scoff. Kalin's voice is wet again. Wild. But not the open, mysterious seas. Like the storms that chill you to the bone. Soak your feet. Flood a basement.

Kalin is drowning in his own tears.

Yusei sits down next to the hunched over man. His shirt grates with friction as he slides down the wall. He looks next to him. Tears slide down Kalin's face. His eyes, and face are bright red, contrasting with his shock of white hair. His hair sticks like spider webs to his drenched cheeks. Kalin rubs an arm against his face. He does not succeed. The hair is plastered in their encased glue.

"I'm fine, Yusei. You don't need to play guardian angel for me." Yusei frowns.

"I'm not a guardian angel, Kalin. I'm your friend." Kalin bursts out into belly rocking laughter. He points a shaking finger at Yusei.

"Do you remember these past few years at all? You're everyone's guardian angel." Yusei frowns. _But not the sacrificed. Not the ones dead. Not Bruno's,_ whispers the voice in his head. Yusei shakes himself. Trying to toss it out. At least Kalin didn't argue being friends.

"I'm really not, Kalin." Kalin huffs a scoff again. "If anything, you're my guardian angel. You saved my life." Kalin stares at him with shocked eyes.

"I almost _ended_ your life, too, Yusei! Or have you forgotten?" Yusei looks at Kalin's flushed face. He remembers black scleras. Gold irises. He also remembers dangling. Dangling from a cord. Yusei still remembers that vividly. Gravity tugging on his weight. His shoulder being yanked out of its socket. Helpless except for the determined face above him. Kalin's hair swaying in the breeze under his headband. Kalin had the sun shining directly above him. Like a halo.

"I remember. I also remember you fighting to save others. To protect the Satellite. Protect us. Protect _me."_ Kalin watches him with astonished eyes.

"You think of me like that Yusei? You really do?"

"Yes," it slips out fast, and fierce from his teeth. He means it. From the bottom of his heart. Kalin closes his eyes. He shakes with pain, curling in on himself as if Yusei had landed him a blow instead. Yusei reaches out with gentle hands. He brushes Kalin's back with a feather touch. Kalin collapses in on himself, curling under Yusei's arm. Yusei's shirt weighs with dampness.

Yusei's face is wet, too.

Kalin's fingers curl into claws. They wrench into Yusei's shirt. Like starving vultures wrenching the vestiges of their prey. Like kittens kneading comfort from their mother. Yusei ignores the abuse of his shirt.

"You've always been my angel, Kalin."

"You were my angel first, Yusei. Before you were the world's. You were mine first." A choked out question.

"Of course I was." Another sob is punched out of Kalin's chest.

"How can you forgive me?"

"I think a better question is why can't you forgive yourself? I thought you did?" Yusei ignores how hypocritical he is. He thinks he understands Kalin. With nightmares of a future dancing in front of his eyes. Nightmares that haunt him in wakefulness. The screams of those sacrificed to the earthbound immortals. With the sobs at Bruno's funeral service ringing in his ears. Kalin starts his hysterical laughter again. He has far too much practice at it for Yusei to be happy with.

"It's easy to say that in broad daylight, Yusei. When nightmares don't tear at you." Oh how Yusei understands. When nightmares stole his own peace from him. But empty platitudes won't help either of them. So Yusei wraps his arms tighter around Kalin. Yusei squeezes him like he could wring the nightmares from them both. It doesn't work. It never will. But it lends them as much comfort as they can find in their sorrow.

Yusei plants a kiss on the top of a silky waterfall of hair. Kalin sobs again. Yusei sobs back. They trace each other's faces with trembling fingers. They plant tear-stained kisses on each other's chapped lips. It isn't what Yusei would call a pleasant feeling. But it tastes of comfort. They do it again, and again as they sob into the other's mouth.

Maybe one day they can forgive themselves, even in the shadows of the night. But for now, they have each other for that.


End file.
